íslenskar pönnukökur a la catracho

I enjoy cooking. And this past week has consisted of a flurry of culinary activity of which I am actually quite proud. While J. & I eat out for lunch, I've been cooking dinner from scratch. The cooking arrangement has been quite lovely, in that I cook and J. eats what I cook and I think we're both happier that way. The kitchen is really only big enough for one person so what usually happens is J. looks up recipes and instructs me from the living room. This past week we've eaten:

Hashbrowns & scrambled eggs with liberal amounts of albahaca, olive oil, and Honduran mozzarella cheese. Cheese, outside America, is way better. And cheaper. Enough said.

Wings a la barbacoa: Chicken wings brushed with olive oil with a sprinkling of corn flakes, albahaca, and onions. We don't really have any oven pans so we resourcefully used our broiler pan. I was worried about the chicken sticking to said pan so I used a limon with butter on it (we didn't have any napkins or paper towels) to grease the pan which actually ended up burning (the butter, not the limon or the pan) during the cooking process giving the wings a delicious barbecue sabor.

Platanos. Unlike our previous successful kitchen accidents (burned butter barbecue) these sucked. I think it was primarily because the platanos I used were not maduro enough and so even after an over-long sauteeing process they were still hard. And gross. Everyone kept telling me that I needed to buy platanos that were asi, pero biennnn maduros so I fully accept the blame here.

Chocolate chip cookies. I tried to follow the good old Toll House recipe while using none of the actual ingredients (Nestle chocolate bar, only brown sugar, a dash of leche condensada for good measure) and came out with these muffin-like things that were OKish. Checque.

Pechuga en tortilla. I discovered that before sauteeing chicken breast, one must first pound the chicken with a meat mallet. Having no meat mallet, I resorted to punching the chicken. This was fun. I then softly covered the lambasted chicken with corn flour before sauteeing and then placing it along with albahaca, pepino, cheese, and limon into a flour tortilla. And, because I am an uncultured American, I added ketchup.

Finally, and of this I am most proud, I made Icelandic pancakes. Icelandic pancakes are like crepes, but better because they are Icelandic. I modified the recipe somewhat because I didn't have all the ingredients, and in an effort to remind myself that I am not in Iceland, but Honduras, I opted against the traditional jam/sugar topping and instead used dulce de leche which was AWESOME. I may have also squeezed some limon juice into the batter. And in an even further attempt to foster the meeting of cultures I made the pancakes while listening to Jonsi AND La Bomba (Movimiento Sensual ) by King Africa the latter which brought back fond memories of middle school Rec Night. Oh yes.

Speaking of middle school in Peru, my father sent me this video. It's the most hilarious thing I've seen in a while and involves a fleet of Peruvians visiting Peru, Nebraska in an effort to educate them on what it means to be Peruvian. So good. And the best marketing campaign I think I've ever, ever seen.